1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of recording information on a recording medium, and particularly, to a method of recording information on a recording medium, which requires a finalizing process to be performed after information recording, to ensure compatibility of a reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As recording formats that require a finalizing process, there are, for example, the DVD-R (Digital Versatile Disc Recordable) format and the DVD-RW (Digital Versatile Disc ReWritable) format. For recording information on an optical disk compatible with these formats, it is necessary to ensure that the information can be reproduced by a reproducing apparatus compatible with a DVD-Video (Digital Versatile Disc Video) format. For this purpose, a finalizing process is performed on the disk such that reproduction compatibility is provided. A finalizing process is a process to arrange data so as to place a lead-in area and a lead-out area in an inner track and an outer track relative to a user data area of an optical disk, respectively. This process is necessary to enable information on a recording disk to be reproduced on DVD-Video reproducing apparatuses.
This finalizing process may be a process in which a lead-in area is allocated during formatting, and a lead-out area is allocated after information is recorded in a user data area, or may be a process in which after information is recorded in a user data area, a lead-in area and a lead-out area are allocated.
According to the DVD-Video format standard, some information is required to be recorded in an area of inner tracks within a diameter of 70 mm on a disk, which is approximately one GB when converted to the amount of information. If an amount of recorded information is less than one GB at the start of a finalizing process, as shown in FIG. 3A, a longer lead-out area is recorded, as shown in FIG. 3B, so that the process satisfies the above standard. However, because a recording operation cannot be interrupted during recording of a lead-out area, a user has to wait until completion of the recording processing of a lead-out area.
To address the above-described problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-050444 proposes a method of performing a finalizing process in which, if an amount of recorded information is less than a regular amount value, dummy information (for example, zero data) is added to the end of a normal recorded information file, as shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B, so that information whose amount is equal to or greater than the regular amount value is recorded. FIG. 11A illustrates a method in which dummy information is not managed as a file, and FIG. 11B illustrates a method in which normal recorded information and dummy information are managed as one file. Whether recorded information is a file or not depends on whether or not management information for managing the information as a file is recorded or not. In FIGS. 11A and 11B, a solid arrow from management information points to a file managed by the management information. Specifically, in FIG. 11A, dummy information is not a file because management information for managing the dummy information as a file is not recorded. Recording of dummy information, as described above, is referred to as padding. In this method, a lead-out area to be recorded is not required to be longer, and, therefore, recording processing can be interrupted while dummy information to be added to a file is being recorded.
However, the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-050444 does not manage dummy information as an independent file. Therefore, unless a special flag is used or management information is analyzed, it is impossible to determine whether a disk is in a state in which information has been recorded halfway by a user and a finalizing process is not yet applied, or in a state wherein a finalizing process has been interrupted.